6939
Wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year !
Recently I had a chance to interact with the Post Graduate and Doctoral
scholars of Agricultural Extension at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University on
‘literature search’ in agricultural extension; A few tasks assigned to the
students as part of a practical exercise were, to frame the research questions,
list out the key areas, identify the relevant primary, secondary and tertiary
literature sources and finally evaluate shortlisted sources using the CRAAP
test. In this era of information overload, research scholars find it difficult to evaluate the credibility of the
information collected, without an instrument.
The CRAAP test, developed by Meriam Library at California State University is an instrument that can be used to evaluate the information with a list of questions, a few of which are given below (Meriam Library, 2010).
· When was the information published or posted?
· Does your topic require current information, or will older sources work as well? Are the links functional?
· Does the information relate to your topic or answer your question?
· Who is the author/publisher/source/sponsor?
· What are the author’s credentials or organizational affiliations?
· Is the author qualified to write on the topic?
· Is there contact information, such as a publisher or email address? Does the URL reveal anything about the author or source? Such as : .com .edu .gov .org .net
· Where does the information come from?
· Is the information supported by evidence?
· Has the information been reviewed or refereed?
· Can you verify any of the information in another source or from personal knowledge?
· Does the language or tone seem unbiased and free of emotion?
· Are there spelling, grammar or typographical errors?
· What is the purpose of the information? Is it to inform, teach, sell, entertain or persuade?
· Is the information fact, opinion or propaganda?
· Does the point of view appear objective and impartial?
· Are there political, ideological, cultural, religious, institutional or personal biases?
Besides the
research scholars, the extension professionals also can employ this test while
seeking information for satisfying their information-needs.
This issue of JEE has papers on topics such as socio-economic determinants of dairy farmers’ knowledge in Uttar Pradesh and dairy entrepreneurial ecosystem in Kerala. Do send your feedback on these papers to editorextension@gmail.com.